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I've a third party application that sends to distribution lists using Outlook. I presume that this is done using extended MAPI. As Outlook can hang if a large number of messages are generated, I want to create a service that reads the messages stored in the Outbox of the MessageStore, send the emails through an SMTP gateway and delete the sent message from the Outbox. All this should be done without the need to run Outlook - Outlook will still be installed though.

I would like to know how what I have just described can be done using Delphi without using any 3rd party commercial components. I've been researching for many days but can't find any sample code or examples. There is plenty of code for simple MAPI though. Appreciate any pointers. :)

Joshua
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2 Answers2

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What you need is Outlook automation and for that you need to look into the Outlook Object Model as Dmitry already mentioned.

The documentation on the Outlook Object Model is available on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa221870(v=office.11).aspx

And this should get you started automating Outlook from any application: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa209963(v=office.11).aspx Yes it is about automating Outlook from a Visual Basic app, but the concepts are the same no matter which environment you use to automate Outlook.

Also Deborah Pate's site, while it seems it is no longer updated regularly, still holds very valuable information on automating any Office application from Delphi: http://www.djpate.freeserve.co.uk/Automation.htm

Going on from there, this question will help you get started on finding the outbox: Outlook Object Model - Detecting Mailboxes

Community
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Marjan Venema
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  • thanks for your detailed answer. My solution needs to work without Outlook running in the background. I managed to find extended MAPI code on this website - http://www.evocorp.com/Delphi/ADDExtendedMapi.htm However, while it can enumerate messages in the Outbox, I'm not able to delete messages from the Outbox. It could delete messages from the Inbox though. – Joshua May 15 '12 at 18:40
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Outlook sends messages asynchnously, so I assume the problem is the third party app generating messages using the Outlook Object Model (which happens on the main Outlook thread). Once the messages are submitted, they will be sent asynchronously.

Dmitry Streblechenko
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  • thanks. The third party app is able to generate messages even without Outlook running. Does Outlook Object Model works that way? – Joshua May 15 '12 at 18:38